Conservative Bloggers: Beware of "Jumping in Pools" Blog (Updated)

Conservatives: Beware of this blog–
It’s a head fake.Jumping in Pools Blog is a website that specializes in writing realistic but fake stories, publishing them and then watching who will link to their bogus news story. The blog does not identify itself as a satire site and several of their satire pieces are so close to fact that it is hard to tell the difference. Don’t be fooled. Several conservatives have fallen for their pranks and Reuters even published one of their posts at least once. This is a dangerous website.

The latest conservatives to fall for one of their fake news stories were Rush Limbaugh and Michael Ledeen. On August 25 Jumping in Pools posted a fake article about Obama’s far left college thesis. Obama wrote his thesis on a nuke free world. He never released it during the campaign because it is reportedly filled with radical slurs against America. The state-run media never cared much about it. So in August Jumping in Pools posted one of their fake stories claiming they found this thesis.

Last week Rush’s team and Michael fell victim to the prank. Tonight the state-run media is getting a good laugh at Rush’s expense.

Occasionally I get emails from readers pointing me to this blog. It is obviously still fooling its readers. Please pay particular attention and remember the name of this horrid website. Don’t let yourself fall victim to their high school humor.

UPDATE: Matthew from BiP sent this:

Jim,

Yours is a site that I respect. Did you even bother visiting JiP before you cranked out your hit piece? Over 90% of our articles are non-satirical. And when they are satire, they are duly noted.

Matt

My Response-

Matthew- Obviously, your satire is not clearly marked or Michael and Rush would not have linked.

Jim

UPDATE 2: This comes from Tim K. at JiP–

Mr.Hoft,

I would invite you to visit this link, of all of the satire which is labeled as such at Jumping in Pools.

Just because Mr.Ledeen did not read the fine print, or Rush Limbaugh’s staff, does not mean it was not clearly stated.

As Mr.Ledeen wrote, “The hoax/satire was written in August, so it’s not connected to any current event. I cam across it on Twitter, read the blog, found it interesting, and posted on it. I failed to notice that one of the tags was “satire.””, perhaps if Mr.Ledeen did some investigative reporting or read the entire article, he would have seen it.

I have always respected your website, especially on Honduras, you are a valued part of the Conservative blogosphere, however, you are wrong to attack Jumping in Pools, a website which specializes on covering the daily happenings of the world. Let us not also forget, Mr.Ledeen found our article, we did not find his pen.

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